Thanks for sharing! Yeah, I should try more Puerto Rican and Hawaiian coffee.

Fair trade definitely has its share of flaws. The Stanford Social Innovation Review had a good story about this a while back. Many reputable roasters like the ones I mentioned don't buy into it. It's a shame that more consumers who are looking to be socially responsible about their purchases can't rely on their brand to make a truly informed decision. And I think that charity is fine as long as it is sustainable -- helping smallholder farmers increase their incomes through business is probably one of the best models around.

This is super interesting. OP, I'm glad that you posted this whole process. And to anyone reading this, I think it might be equally interesting to imagine for a moment that you're a coffee farmer going through a process similar to this during harvest (sans roasting and brewing) to get your coffee ready to sell. As the OP said, it's very labor and time intensive to de-pulp, wash, and dry all of those beans.

And despite the romantic notion of hand processing, it actually decreases the potential quality of the coffee. Wet mills are much more effective, which is why you see farmer cooperatives form in parts of the developing world to purchase that kind of equipment. And as a collective, they have more power in the marketplace than if they were to sell their product as individuals.

There are a lot of local buyers that will take advantage of individual, smallholder farmers -- giving them false information about market price when buying their coffee, for instance. A lot of them stay in poverty as a result of these sort of market inefficiencies...it's not good. Fortunately, there are some nonprofits that help farmers actually break through these barriers so they can produce coffee at a certain level where guys like Stumptown, Four Barrel, Blue Bottle, La Colombe, etc will buy from them, and at a price where they can become less poor -- doubling or tripling their incomes. If you're interested, NPR wrote a very good story about an example of this in Ethiopia. And despite the name, TechnoServe is a great nonprofit that deserves everyone's attention.

Hopefully, more coffee connoisseurs will become aware of what it takes to put a cup in their hands. I find it intensely interesting to know where the things I consume/own come from, so thank again OP for posting your process! I'm sure the coffee tasted all the better for your hard work.

Thanks for your words. I'm definitely not pursuing any sort of friendship with her. I thought I was in a good place for a while and that I was moving on, but I'm realizing that I was just very distracted. Probably about time to find a therapist in this new city -- I was working through this with someone previously and she saw a ton of progress in me, apparently.

The memories are about half positive and half negative. It is so exhausting, but I cannot help put it out of my mind. Waking up emotionally drained from dreams is not how I want to feel at all.

That's rough, I'm sorry to hear. I'm in a huge city now but constantly worry that I'm going to see her in public, so I understand that feeling to a certain degree. One of my previous exes lived in very close proximity (down the hall) after we broke up and it wasn't good at all.

Yeah, I feel pretty similar. It has been a hard period. Even if I try to take my mind off my past life during the day, I can't avoid it when I sleep. All sorts of scenarios play out, all of them are torturous. It is rare that I get a good night of rest.

I was so distracted when looking for a new job and place to live, moving out of our old apartment (was there for a few extra months), and readjusting to a new city with an endless amount of stuff to do. Now that I'm in another groove, things are starting to bubble to the surface again. So sick of these thoughts, I just want it to end.

Thanks for your reply. That is and has been my plan. She is totally out of the picture in my digital life. The only reason I know she moved to the city where I am is because her name and location came up while I was typing out someone else's name on Facebook.

In my recent experience, knowing and realizing that something is a waste of time is different from what happens to get in your head, despite everything you are trying to do to move on.

I think of the bad just as much as the good. She's not a good person and I don't want to have anything to do with her.

It doesn't look like they do any work in Cameroon, but maybe that is possible in the future? Here are some blog posts about coffee on their site and a PDF report about their coffee work with the Gates Foundation.